Petrom posted net profit of 345 million lei (EUR77.5 million), compared with RON1.075 billion in January-March 2014, according to the company’s quarterly financial report.
Sales revenue fell 19% on the year to RON4.27 billion in the first three months, despite higher volume sales.
Petrom’s hydrocarbon production in Romania increased by 2% to 174 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day, offsetting the slight decline from Kazakhstan operations. Total production was of 16.5 million boe in the first quarter, up 1% from the year-ago period.
However, the result of the Upstream division was negatively affected by the significant decrease of oil prices, which was just partly compensated by better exchange rates and the slight increase in volumes sold, Petrom chief executive officer Mariana Gheorghe said in a statement.
“In response to the low crude price environment, we scaled back our 2015 group investments by approx. 30% year-on-year and continued to optimize our cost structure, measures which are expected to protect our free cash flow position. Nevertheless, these initiatives will impact our hydrocarbon production in the future.”
However, the company said it continues its exploration activity in the Black Sea, in partnership with ExxonMobil. So far this year, two new exploration wells were spudded in the Neptun Block, and the drilling rig has been moved to a new location, Petrom said.
Petrom, a unit of Austria’s OMV, said it will invest around RON5.3 billion this year, with more than 85% of the amount going into upstream operations.